Natalie Johnston

First post:
Sep 30, 2017 Latest post:
Jan 7, 2018

Natalie started having pain right below her knee at the beginning of the summer. She was taking a tumbling class for cheer. We thought maybe she had tweaked it when she was doing a backhand spring or a jump. The pain persisted. So in the beginning of July, we took her to the doctor. The doctor thought the same thing. She sent us home and told us to ice it and give her Motrin. If it wasn't better in 2 weeks, she said to bring her back. Just a few days after the two weeks were up, we were headed to Washington DC for a family trip. We thought that maybe another two weeks off of cheer might help even more with the healing of her leg. But after we came back from our trip, her knee was still hurting. We took her back in and saw another doctor. Because her leg had not gotten any better, the doctor decided to do an x-ray followed by an MRI. So on Friday, August 25th, we took her in for an MRI. The MRI was mostly of her knee. We received a call Saturday, August 26th, that they could only see a small part of her tibia bone in the MRI. But the part they could see looked like there might be cancer. They sent us immediately back to Valley Children's Hospital and told us to go straight to the Emergency Room for an MRI, so they could get a better view of the leg. There was an oncologist on call that looked at the MRI and told us it was bone cancer. Since then, we have been to San Francisco to see an orthopedic oncologist. She had a biopsy, and it was determined that she has Osteosarcoma, which is a type of bone cancer. We appreciate you visiting Caring Bridge. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.